The game lost all by itself, I didn’t do anything special. I was just going through the same stupid moves playing Spider Solitaire when it showed it didn’t have any variants left. That was strange. As strange as the music of the “Mice Parade” floating from the third-rate loudspeakers mounted right on the cheap computer table, standing in the corner of the dirty hotel room.
All those wicked dreams that came to me in the single suites of those 3-star hotels suggested that something should follow. I quit the game and stared out of the window. There was nothing to look at, actually the view of the empty midnight street was pretty much hampered by the gigantic ad of the hotel I was temporarily dwelling in. One night here, one night there. Long distance buses for the distances that eventually don’t seem that long. Three hours minimum. What do I find on the other end? Every time it’s the same: a big and empty bar with a couple of hookers chatting away the time until they are bought by some rich foreigner. Some rich foreigner like me. Only, I don’t buy hookers. I see no point in paying money for something I get for free.
I ask for a boss. I wait for the boss to come down to the bar, meanwhile trying to figure out which of those three or four used-up girls would be the best to fuck. Only, I’m not going to fuck them. Even for free. You may call it morals and family values and decency. I call it fear. And common sense. Nobody wants to get compromised over some cheap slut.
Ah, here comes the boss. This is where I start to talk. I talk in a language, foreign to me and sometimes even foreign to those who should be speaking it. I speak in Chinese. Mandarin. Putonghua as they call it here. What I say is a pre-made text, a sample, that never changes. From bar to bar I say one and the same thing, that goes as: “Hello, we are an entertainment company, we spent over ten years in the foreign market and we’ve spent more than a year in the Chinese market. We’re making parties and, probably, we could make a party here at your beautiful famous big bar. The bar is usually not beautiful. And not at all famous. But the boss is pleased to hear me praising his shithole, so far it works. I show the boss our photos. I show him our video. I give him a business card and ask for his one.
That’s the most important thing. The business card. The boss will probably never call us thinking that our price is very high and the party just won’t be a success and his club will only lose money over that. Eight times out of ten he is thinking right. And he will not call. But that’s not a problem because, as soon as I come back, I give the business cards to our office Chinese and they keep calling the bars unless those figure out some ways of cooperation. They call it aggressive marketing. I call it, well, I don’t call it anyhow. Probably you’ll think out a better name than that.
Usually one city has up to five big bars. I mean the bars that are worth my interest. I go to all of them. How do I find them? Easily. You just need to ask the taxi drivers. They know everything. And they are ready to share the info with a foreigner who speaks their freaky language, which stuck somewhere between prehistorical sounds and a gurgle. I use that. Actually, I don’t speak very well. I’m not even in the top hundred. I studied that only for a year and never planned it to be my profession. It just happened so. Back to the taxi drivers. They know everything. Where to find a girl. Where to buy cheap computer parts. Or high-quality porn. Or drugs. You just say it and they’ll bring you there. That’s what I like about them. They are reliable. Like Electrolux fridges. Or BMW cars. They know the hotels and the prices. If you’re nice enough they’ll tell you everything you need and even more. I just use that.
So I collect the business cards and write a report of my stay here and there and have nothing to do. What would you do in a small city closer to the end of the world in the 21-st century? I don’t know the answer. I just go online and that’s if the hotel has an Internet line. Most often they don’t. So I just sit in front of my laptop, thinking how the fuck I got to be there and what can I do to kill extra five hours before my morning trip back home to Shanghai.
Tell you what, you know how it happens: you meet a girl and in some time you discover she’s become something more than a bed supplement. A couple of months pass and you understand that you’ll never let her go anywhere without you. At least that’s what happened to me. I was living in Nanjing, studying and doing all sorts of odd jobs that came along the way. This is my story. And then I bumped into this one, called Nadia. I don’t remember if she were as drunk that night as I was, but we wound up kissing in the doorway of the bar I was basically living in. As soon as she said she’d move away to Shanghai I just packed my laptop and went there straight with her. I came to the company where she was supposed to work and asked the boss for a job. Any job he could give me. This is how I wound up here. As simple as that. The company paid for the flat and visas for both of us. And they even promised me a decent salary should I be put on a contract. That did the trick. I sold my bikes, both of them, and moved to Shanghai full-time. This just turns out to be cheaper than the long-distance phone calls. I changed all I could, shifted from torn jeans to a business suit, from a lousy second-floor apartment to a newly-built condo in the center, started riding taxis instead of my bike. Am I happy now? I don’t know. I seem to be losing something. Something important that’s slipping away through my fingers while I’m building a completely new lifestyle. I seem to be all set-up. Tiresome job, promotion opportunities, big city, busy life, business trips. Just like in a movie. What the fuck else do I want?
I look out into the window. I don’t know. The window’s covered with the ad of this very hotel I’m in. I did my job. I’ve already written a report, so as soon as I come to the office, I’ll just have to print it out and that’s it for the coming week. I’ve thrown away another weekend. I’ll have a day-off on Tuesday. Take a cam and ride through the windy autumn Shanghai.
And then I’ll see.